The Beginning is the End is the Beginning
by vballmania23
Summary: Alex Rider was 18 when he did his last job for MI6. James Bond was 22 when he was recruited. What they didn't know - he's the same man. Explores how Rider became Bond. James Bond/Alex Rider crossover, AU. Title from a Smashing Pumpkins song.


A/N: I know, some of you must currently be yelling at your computer and asking why I'm not working on Batman Revealed and instead posting this. Don't worry, this has already been written for some time and the only time it took away from writing the next chapter was for minor tweaking. It's just been nagging at me and asking to be put up, so I finally gave in. This is a James Bond/Alex Rider crossover that's been in my head for a while, inspired by a quote in Casino Royale when Vesper and Bond are in the train and she's quzzing him about his life. That lead to one story which inspired this one.

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Alex Rider was 18 when he did his last job for MI6. A drop-out after being kicked out of school for missing too many days, he was living off the small "allowance" MI6 sent him every month, his uncle's money, and the odd jobs he could scrounge up until another mission sent him away abruptly and he was fired again for failing to show up. It shouldn't have surprised him. As the teenage spy who had taken down criminal masterminds and topped the hit-list of one of the deadliest crime organizations in the world, it was to be expected his identity would be revealed to the public one day. It did so most explosively.

While undercover, he had come across a plot to blow up parliament. The bombs were ticking, and with no time for discretion, he had diffused the bomb that would set off a chain reaction, taking down the henchmen guarding it in the process. He had been caught by a bloody home video that found its way onto a journalist's desk.

Enquiries had been made about the mysterious boy who fought, and the very few documents containing information about the teenaged spy quickly disappeared before investigators got their hands on them. Alex Rider's entire life was deleted efficiently, except for the most damning piece of evidence – Alex himself. MI6 was always loath to dispose of potential assets, and Alex had proved again and again that he was among the best agent they had. Alan Blunt, scrambling to hold onto his job in the face of public outcry, made one final act to erase Alex Rider forever.

He gave Alex a new identity – James Bond, who had been orphaned at an early age and was due to start his first year at Oxford. He was a good student but very poor, so his fees were being paid by a generous benefactor who wished to remain anonymous on official documents. Bond's first years were a struggle to keep up with his peers. He had to learn everything from the two years of schooling he had missed, all while trying to keep up during his university classes.

The students, most of them well-to-do, ostracized him. At first it was because he was stupid and lazy, then because he was too smart. Bond went through his four years spending more time studying and working out than spending time with friends. He talked when he needed to be, and spent more time working on interacting with his classmates as if they were workers for someone Bond was spying on.

Despite his abysmal personal relationships, he graduated with outstanding grades, and a representative from MI6 approached him the minute he left the campus. The man had no clue who Bond had been, but simply had approached him on an anonymous recommendation from inside MI6. James Bond accepted the offer, and now the man that was formally Alex Rider was finally an official member of the organization that had taken over his life.

First there was training – years of training. This time, he wasn't hired in secret and immediately thrust into a situation after a bare two weeks of training. He signed waivers and documents, went through physical and mental exams, received special training designed specifically for MI6 operatives, and revisited SAS training. He was taught how to shoot and stab, to borrow, beg, and steal. He learned to interrogate and comfort. All the training he had bypassed the first time he now learned and became proficient at.

Everyone marveled at how successful he was. Bond shrugged it off, claiming luck and, when that did not work, saying he was simply a natural. Nobody ever notice the bitter edge to his smile when he said that. _A natural._ The actions of one who was raised by an uncle that worked for the same organization, who had been taught all the crafts useful to a spy when he was just an innocent boy.

When Bond reached Double-O status, his superiors were impressed by how well he coped with the job and the stress. They didn't know he had (indirectly) killed someone at age 14, that he had been masking his feelings longer than he could remember. As 007, Bond again went on missions equaling the importance and risk of the ones he had done as Alex Rider. The realization that Alan Blunt had sent him on missions reserved for MI6's elite made him shake with anger. He hated MI6 and Blunt for taking his life, his future away to do the work of adults when he was but a teenager. He loved it for making his feel alive, for sending him on missions that made his heart race and adrenalin surge though his body. MI6 had him trapped, forced to be a spy or again become a high-school dropout.

On missions, he was able to live, submersing himself in the character of whoever he was supposed to be. He was able to forget the life he had to live as Bond, and the chokehold MI6 had on his life. In England, he simply existed, waiting for another mission, another change to forget. He waited for the inevitable death that came from spying too long, for the chance that maybe, just maybe, it would be the last mission. After all, Double-0's have a very short life expectancy. Maybe it was fate's little joke to make sure he was setting the record for longest-lived.


End file.
